Naruto Shippuden Box Set 3

Guest Author - Lesley Aeschliman

Naruto Shippuden Box Set 3 Season One: Original & Uncut is a three DVD set that contains episodes 27 through 39 of Naruto Shippuden. The first two discs contain four episodes and extras, while the third disc contains five episodes and bonus features.

The episodes in the set conclude the Gaara rescue story arc, and a new story arc begins. This new arc sees Kakashi out of commission after overexerting himself in the battle with Deidara, so a new character named Yamato is introduced to lead the team until Kakashi recovers. Since Sasuke is also missing, a young man named Sai is added to the team, and Naruto doesn't get along with him. The new Team Kakashi is following up on a lead that could lead to finding Sasuke. Unfortunately, this story arc is not concluded in this set.

On each disc in this set, you can choose to watch all of the episodes, choose which episode you want to start with, you can set your language and subtitle options, and you can also view the extras included on the disc.

The first disc has three extras included. The first is a set of trailers, which start automatically when you select the trailers option. The trailers included on this disc are for the Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 videogame, Naruto Shippuden, Naruto Shippuden: The Movie, and Bleach the Movie 2: The DiamondDust Rebellion.

The second feature is listed as "New From Viz Media." The link takes you to four pages of advertisements for Shonen Jump magazine, the Naruto manga, and other Shonen Jump titles. The third link is "Online Features"; all this contains is two screens that show where to purchase Viz Media titles online.

The second disc also has three extras. The first one is "Trailers," and it includes trailers for the Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 videogame, the Naruto Shippuden: Legends Akatsuki Rising videogame, Naruto Shippuden, Naruto Shippuden: The Movie, and Bleach The Movie 2: The DiamondDust Rebellion. "New From Viz Media" is the exact same feature included on the first disc. The "Online Features" screens included on this disc are exactly the same as the ones that appear on disc one.

The third disc has seven extras. The first is "Trailers," which contains the exact same trailers that appear on the second disc. Not only are they the exact same trailers, but they also appear in the exact same order as they did on the second disc. "New From Viz Media" is exactly the same as what appeared on the previous two discs; however "Online Features" only has one screen on this disc.

Next is "Voice Actor Featurette: The New Faces of Naruto Shippuden." This feature runs for 14 minutes, and includes interviews with the ADR director, as well as the voice actors for Deidara, Sasori, Yamato, and Sai. It's the standard voice actor featurette interviews that I have seen on other Viz Media releases for Naruto and Bleach. Basically, the ADR director gives some background about what's going on at this point in the series; however, she did also include a couple of spoilers by stating information that hadn't been revealed in the episodes included in this set. The voice actors talk about the characters they portray and their impressions of their characters.

"Relationship Chart: Sand Siblings" has the viewer select an image to see how the characters connect. Included in this feature are Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro. "Production Art" has 15 screens of production sketches of the characters. The final extra is "English Credits," where you can see the credits for the English dub.

Overall, I thought that the episodes in this set were paced just about right. Once the first story arc ends, the remaining episodes are spent developing the characters of Yamato and Sai; however, I think a little more effort was put into developing Sai over Yamato. This set also introduces Danzo, who is a hardline ninja. Over the course of the new story arc, you see hints of politics involving the Leaf Village. It will be interesting to see how these politics ultimately come into play as the story progresses.

If you're a fan of the Naruto franchise and want to have all of the episodes of the series on DVD, I would recommend purchasing this box set.

I checked out a copy of this DVD box set through the King County Library System in order to write this review.